October 26, 2004

Georgia Institute of Technology physicists have successfully transferred quantum information from two different groups of atoms onto a single photon.

The researchers report transferring atomic state information from two different clouds of rubidium atoms to a single photon. In the photon, information about the spatial states of the atom clouds was represented as vertical or horizontal optical polarization. The work is believed to be the first to demonstrate transfer… read more

October 25, 2004

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has announced a new registration category just for nanotechnology inventions.

The patent office’s definition requires that a least one dimension of an invention be less than 100 nanometers and the nanoscale element of the product or process must be essential to whatever properties make it novel.

The patent office began training its examiners in nanotechnology concepts and terminology in November, and has… read more

October 25, 2004

Doctors should slash the health risks for mothers and children associated with in vitro fertilization (IVF) by transferring only one embryo into the uterus after treatment, thereby cutting the rate of multiple births, researchers urged.

October 25, 2004

Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus. It could replace its biological counterpart, enabling people who suffer from memory disorders to regain the ability to store new memories.

The chip simulates the processing of biological neurons in the slice of rat hippocampus: accepting electrical impulses, processing them using mathematical… read more

October 25, 2004

Hewlett-Packard has developed revolutionary LCD technology that will lead to ultra-high-resolution (7000 by 5000 pixels) flat screens ranging in size from a magazine page to an advertising billboard within five years.

October 22, 2004

Research fellows at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) are developing “crazy ideas” for the future, such as skin-tight spray-on spacesuits for a trip to Mars … static-electricity fields that would protect future lunar bases from space radiation … even a lunar lab that could develop microbes for terraforming Mars.

Rising interest in the space elevator concept is one of NIAC’s success stories.

October 22, 2004

Texas Instruments Inc. today announced development of the wireless industry’s first digital TV on a single chip for cell phones.

The chip will receive live digital TV broadcasts at 24 to 30 frames per second. Manufacturers are expected to launch products in conjunction with a new mobile digital TV infrastructure, with mass deployments in 2007.

October 22, 2004

Systems biologists are pushing the envelope of preventive medicine through research centered on the interactions of the thousands of pieces of DNA, RNA and proteins that network together in each cell of our body.

According to its proponents, systems biology will revolutionize medicine, transforming it from something that is mainly reactive into something that is predictive and will eventually prevent diseases getting hold in the first place.

October 22, 2004

US biologists have created cloned monkey embryos, and successfully transferred them into monkey mothers. Although none of the resulting pregnancies lasted more than a month, this is by far the closest scientists have come to cloning a primate.

If researchers are able to repeat this process in monkeys, it might help them to refine the tricky technique without experimenting on human eggs and embryos, which are very difficult to… read more

October 22, 2004

The 1918 flu virus spread across the world in three months and killed at least 40 million people. If it escaped from a lab today, the death toll could be far higher because people born after 1918 have little or no immunity.

Yet despite the danger, researchers in the US are working with reconstructed versions of the virus at less than the maximum level of containment.